Chemical Industry
and Researchers Ask for National Children's Study Funding
(Beyond Pesticides, April 29, 2004) According to the American
Chemistry Council briefing yesterday, the national longitudinal cohort
study of environmental influences on children's health and development
is underway, but needs an additional $27 million for fiscal year 2005
to begin implementation. The National
Children's Study (NCS) will examine the effects of environmental
influences (including physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial)
on the health and development of more than 100,000 children across the
U.S., following them from before birth until age 21. The study is part
of the Children's Health Act of 2000 (public law 106-310), which
was sponsored by Rep. Michael Bilirakis (FL-9) and Senator Bill Frist
(TN), and is coordinated by the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD).

According to Philip
Landrigan, M.D., M.Sc., Professor and Chair of the Department of Community
and Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New
York City and one of the presenters at the briefing, "This study
will make unique and significant contributions to our understanding
of how behavioral, social and environmental factors early in life may
cause or predispose individuals to certain chronic diseases or conditions."

Other NCS supporters,
such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and Children's Environmental
Health Network, believe that this long-term study will provide the definitive
answers necessary for new regulations and laws protecting children from
exposure to toxins. Even the American Chemistry Council is in support
of the study, stating, "A long-term, national study is the
best hope for identifying the influences and interactions between genes
and environment that influence the development of children."

Since enactment
of the legislation, working groups have been completing the research
protocols to study the environmental links to diseases and are ready
to begin implementation. Yet, NICHD did not receive the funds it needed
for fiscal year 2004, delaying the study by one year. For fiscal year
2005, President Bush has requested $12 million to only allow the planning
activities to continue, which the NCS supporters state will delay it
by at least an additional year.

The $27 million
requested by NCS researchers will begin the implementation phase of
the study, currently planned for late 2005. The funds would go towards:

A data coordinating
center;

A repository
where blood, urine and other samples obtained during the study would
be stored; and,

The establishment
of four regionally distributed vanguard sites across the nation, where
NICHD would start to recruit participants and test out the protocols
to ensure that the study goes smoothly when it ramps up to testing
100,000 children from birth to 21.

NCS supporters state
that childhood diseases of environmental origin cost Americans nearly
$54.9 billion annually. According to a recent Washington
Post article,
the total cost for the 25-year NCS is around $2.7 billion.

George Daston, Ph.D.,
a Research Fellow at Procter & Gamble, stated in his briefing presentation
that one of the reasons why the "business community" supports
NCS is the study's broad definition of "environment." Yet,
others may be concerned that too broad a definition will water-down
the results.

The study will take
a number of issues into account, including:

Natural and
man-made environment factors;

Biological and
chemical factors;

Physical surroundings;

Social factors;

Behavioral influences
and outcomes;

Genetics;

Cultural and
family influences and differences; and,

Geographic locations.

Lee Salamone with
the American Chemistry Council told the Washington Post, "I
think [NCS] will be another data point that will show that chemicals
found at low levels in the environment are not the biggest risk in this
country to children's health."

Many pesticide reform
activists believe that the body of evidence on children's exposure to
pesticides is enough to warrant immediate action to eliminate exposure
to highly toxic pesticides and implement viable alternative strategies.

Children are especially
susceptible to toxins in the environment. The National Academy of Sciences
and the American Academy of Pediatrics have found that pound for pound,
children eat more food, breathe more air, and drink more water than
adults, and thus are more heavily exposed to toxins that enter their
bodies through those avenues. Moreover, their rapid development creates
windows of great vulnerability. Yet, fewer than half of the 75,000 synthetic
chemicals in the environment to which children are potentially exposed,
have been tested for their potential risks to health. Fewer still of
these chemicals have been tested for their possible developmental toxicity
to infants and children, according to Dr. Landrigan.

According to NICHD,
findings from the study will be made available as soon as possible as
the research progresses. It is anticipated that the preliminary results
from the first years of the study will be available in 2008-2009.

An October
29, 2003 Beyond Pesticides Daily News article highlights
the three articles in the October 2003 issue of Environmental Health
Perspective, which discuss the needs for researching the health
effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals on children in the National
Children's Study.

TAKE ACTION:
Those interested can offer input via the National Children's
Study email at [email protected].
For more information, contact Beyond Pesticides.